Mistakes are often made in the web-development process. Many of these mistakes, however, can be avoided with a few simple considerations. Most mistakes spawn from a lack of proper testing, browser incompatibility, and static resolutions.
Whether due to time constraints or negligence, many web apps are released without undergoing efficient pre-release testing. While it may not seem imperative to have an application that runs flawlessly, in reality the majority of users won’t have much patience for bugs. Whether it’s a shopping-cart app failing to process an order or video player failing to load, users will be quick to abandon the application in search of a different, and more efficient substitute. With a myriad of similar web-apps scattered across the internet, proper testing of an application can be the deciding factor in a company or website’s overall success.
However, not all testing can be done in the pre-release phase. While it’s important to try and perfect an application before its release, development teams tend to lack the numbers to test frequently enough. Once the app is live, however, it’s important to keep track of all bugs and stress the importance of reporting them. With increased traffic more bugs will surface, and taking care of them as soon as possible is important to minimizing any damage caused by negative experiences.
Constant testing whether in the pre-release or post-release phase will do little for an application’s stability if the developer fails to take varying browsers into consideration. Not all users will access the app on the same web browser, and if it hasn’t been tested for a specific browser there’s no guarantee the app will run well, if at all. But there’s countless available web browsers, and it would be very time-consuming to try and test for them all. It would be much wiser to focus on the five or even ten most popular browsers. The more popular the browser, the more potential users an application might receive.
Another issue often overlooked is the varying monitor resolutions of users. If an application is designed with a high resolution in mind or uses static widths and heights, then the entire design may appear mangled to a user with a smaller resolution size.
Even if all potential issues are taken into consideration, it’s not possible to completely remove the presence of bugs and errors. But with efficient pre- and post-release testing, development for varying browsers, and flexible dimensions an application can minimize he occurrence of bugs and provide a positive experience to its users.